Commenting on the announcement by the German Chancellor that she will run again next year for the post of Party Chairperson and by implication that of Chancellor, a left-wing commentator fears that the number of those who share her worldview is declining.

In Népszava, Róbert Friss wonders when the supporters of “democracy, freedom, human rights and the liberal world order”will come to their senses and save their world. For the moment, he complains, they keep wailing over the decline of what Ms Merkel represents in Germany and what Barack Obama has represented in America. He fears that the supporters of these two leaders and of their worldview have resigned themselves to the fact that the public has got tired of “sentiments”and a new era of “irrationalism posing as rationalism”has begun. One day that public will wake up under the pressure of remorse, Friss continues. Though, he concludes, such awakenings have so far occurred only as a result of major cataclysms.